Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3)

Mister Slaughter (Matthew Corbett #3) Page 28

"Want a sniffi"

The snuffbox, open to its mound of yellow powder, was suddenly up below Matthew's nose. He stepped back a pace, still with Mrs. Sutch's pleasure on his mind. "No, thank you."

"Don't laugh, you bitches!" Opal called to her friends as the girls emerged grinning from the steaming innards of the laundry house. She took two sniffs up the snoot and sneezed with hurricanious violence. Then she hooked an arm around Matthew's, her eyes watering, and crowed, "I've got me a man!" She pulled him along as if he were made out of spit and straw.

Matthew let himself be pulled.

"Well!" she said, striding with a jaunty step. "What do you want to seei"

"What's worth seeingi"

She gave him a deep-dimpled smile. "Now that's an answer!" She glanced back to gauge if her companions in crime were still watching, and when she saw they'd returned to their labors she released his arm. "Not much worth seein', 'round here at least," she confided. She looked him over from boots to tricorn. "Here, now! You ain't old enough to be puttin' a mater or pater in this velvet prison!"

"I'm bringing my grandfather. and I don't think Mrs. Lovejoy would care to hear your description of Paradise."

"This ain't my idea of Paradise!" she scoffed, her nose wrinkled up so hard Matthew thought the metal ring might go flying out. "Hell, no!" She suddenly seemed to catch her own imprudence. Her cheeks reddened and she widened the distance between them by several feet. "Listen, you ain't gonna go blab about my tongue, are youi I mean, my tongue gets me in awful trouble. I'm already hangin' on to my job by the curl of an ass-hair."

"I won't blab," said Matthew, who was finding the girl to be a sparkling conversationalist. Just what he needed, in fact.

"Might have to go pack my bag anyways, cause of this here whuffie-dust." Opal held up the snuffbox, which was fashioned of cheap birch bark and looked like an item from the shelves of Jaco Dovehart's trading post. "Mizz Lovejoy's already been on me twice this week about it. If Noggin hadn't come along, she was sure to toss me out right then and there."

"Noggini"

"That's who was drivin' the wagon. What she calls him, I mean. Let's go this way." She pointed out a path leading off the main drive into the woods. Matthew had had his fill of forest travel, but he went in the direction she indicated. He waited a moment until he asked his next question, which was disguised as a statement. "I thought Mrs. Lovejoy told me all the workers here were female."

"They are. Well, all the ones who live on the premises. Noggin lives somewhere else. He comes in to do fix-up work. You know, patchin' roofs and paintin' walls and such. and diggin' the graves, he does that too."

"Oh," Matthew said.

"Matter of fact," Opal said, "here's the graveyard."

They came out of the woods to face a cemetery surrounded by a white-painted wrought-iron fence. Everything was neat and orderly, the weeds kept at bay and the small wooden crosses lined up in rows. Matthew counted forty-nine of them. He didn't know if that was high or not for five years of business, considering the ages and conditions of her guests. He doubted if any of them were too very robust when they arrived, and they went down from there.

"Be another one in here after dark," Opal said. "The widow Ford passed late last night. She was a pretty good old lady, never caused much trouble. Had a merry kind of laugh."

"after darki" Matthew paused to lean against the fence. His sense of curiosity, still tingling from his sighting of the burlap bag, received a further pinch. "Why do you put it that wayi"

She shrugged. "ain't no other way to put it. You come here tomorrow, you'll see a fresh grave dug in the night. That's how it's done here."

"Isn't there a funerali"

"There's a service, if that's what you mean. after the doctor looks 'em over and pronounces 'em dead, the preacher says some words. It's done in the church, right over yonder." She motioned toward a small white building that Matthew could see through the trees. "Everybody who's able and wants to come can pay their finals. The coffin lies in the church all day. Then, after dark, Noggin takes the listen, why are you wantin' to know about this so muchi"

"I'd like to know what to expect," Matthew said evenly, "when my grandfather's time comes."

"Oh. 'Course. as I was sayin', then " She stopped and shook her head. "Maybe Mizz Lovejoy ought to be the one tellin' you. I'm already up to my buttbone in trouble."

"all right." Matthew decided to pull back, so as not to scare all the conversation out of her. "Where to nexti"

They walked along the path past the cemetery and the church itself. a road went by the church that Matthew thought must connect to the main drive. Further on there was a bench positioned among some trees, and beyond that vantage point the land sloped slightly downward toward a meadow. a number of other white-washed buildings were in view.

"Those are where they live. The guests, I mean," Opal explained. "The one on the right is for the men, the one on the left for the women. Between 'em is the vegetable garden. Then way over there the smaller one is where we live. It's not much, but we've all got our own rooms. Barn's back behind there. She's got some cows and pigs over that way. I'll milk a cow, all right, but I ain't prancin' in pigshit, and I told her just the same."

"Good for you," Matthew said. "What's thati" He pointed toward a low-slung structure beyond the workers' house that looked to be all panes of glass, shining in the sun. "a greenhousei" He recalled Mrs. Lovejoy mentioning it.

"That's right," Opal said. "Grows her hot plants in there."

"Her hot plantsi"

"Her peppers. Mizz Lovejoy's got a craze for 'em. You can't go in there without your eyes start leakin' and your skin get all itchy. at least I can't."

"She has a second businessi" Matthew asked.

"What second businessi"

"Well she must sell her peppers at market, is what I'm thinking. a little of that goes a long way."

"You'd be wrong," Opal told him. "Mizz Lovejoy feeds 'em to her guests. Grinds 'em up in every damn thing, excuse my French. Even gives 'em pepper juice to drink, mornin', noon and night."

Matthew frowned. "For what earthly reasoni"

"Makes the blood flow, is what she says. Keeps everything workin'. I don't know, ask her. all I know is, you ought to see some of them oldies-guests-eatin' their suppers and moanin' with the tears runnin' down their faces. It's just awful." and then she put her hand up to her mouth but she couldn't catch the laugh before it came spilling out.

"I think you're a very cruel girl, Opal," Matthew said, but he was fighting to keep a straight face too because he could envision the scene she had described. That must make him cruel too, he thought. He was just about to laugh, and he also brought his hand up to cover his mouth.

Before the hand could get there, Opal turned and kissed him.

actually, she flung herself upon him. She pressed her lips upon his with desperate need, and Matthew thought peppers were cool compared to Opal's fire. He staggered back, but she had hold of him and wouldn't let him go. Her mouth worked at his, her tongue explored, one of her hands gripped his buttocks and Matthew thought he was going to be thrown down and ravished under the trees. But after all, this was Paradise.

"Come on, come on," she breathed in his ear, cleaving to him like a second skin. "We can go in the woods, don't matter. I know a good place. Come on, you ever done it behind a churchi" He feared she was going to peel his breeches right off. "You don't know," she said as she pulled at him, her voice near sobbing. "Old people everywhere, and sick, and dyin' right there in front of you, come on, darlin', come on just let me-"

"Opal," he said.

"-have a little bit, a little bit of warm, that's all I'm-"

"Stop," he told her, and he caught her chin and looked into her dazed blue eyes and saw it was not about him at all, no it was not; it was about the place, with its white paint and blue trim and lovely buildings that hid the dark side of Paradise. It was about the wrinkled flesh and the spottings of age and the old women who talked about old dead loves and the old men whose adventures had dwindled down to the size of a chamberpot. It was about the silence of midnight and the frost on the windowpane, and the way a day could be so slow and yet so quick, and how the merry laughter of that good old widow Ford had ended in a strengthless gasp. Matthew knew the truth of this place, and Opal knew it as well; it was where you were put to be forgotten.

"-askin'," she finished, and suddenly the tears bloomed up and blurred the blue and she looked at him as if she'd been struck.

She backed away. Matthew thought she was going to turn and run, but she stopped at a distance and stood staring at the ground as if searching for something she'd lost.

"I " she started, and then went silent again. She rubbed her mouth with the back of her sleeve. He thought she was going to rub her mouth until it bled. "I'm " Once more she was quiet, and Matthew saw her considering her position. When she lifted her gaze to his again, she was full of flame and spite. "I'm going to have to say you advanced on me, if it comes to that." Her eyes were blazing. "If it comes to that," she repeated.

"It won't," he answered, gently.

"I ain't a bad person," she went on. "I mean, I've had my share of scrapes, but I ain't bad. Exactly."

"I need your help," he told her.

She was silent. an expression of incomprehension flickered across her face. Now she did look as if she might turn and run.

"Don't go," Matthew said. "Just listen."

So close to running so close

"Mrs. Lovejoy may be in some trouble." Matthew kept his voice low, but he was also very aware of their surroundings, that no one-especially the mistress of Paradise or her Noggin-would come along the path unheard.

Opal regarded him as he had regarded the rattlesnake beneath his tricorn. "Who are youi"

"I'm going to ask the questions. Has there been a male visitor here lately for Mrs. Lovejoyi Say in the past five daysi"

"a visitori Whoi"

"Listen to me, Opal. In the past five days. Has a man come to visit heri a big man, with broad shoulders." Only true when he swelled himself up, Matthew thought. "Reddish-blond hair, parted down the middle. Going gray on the sides. He would have a bandage probably on the left side of his head, just above the ear. Very pale blue eyes. Like ice. Have you seen anyone like thati"

"Herei" she asked.

"Yes, here. Please, Opal, it's important."

"Why is it importanti"

Oh Christ! he thought.

"If this is about Kitt, I don't know anything," Opal said.

"Kitti Who's Kitti" Matthew felt as if he were back in the night wilderness and unable to see his hand in front of his face.

"I don't know anything."

"all right, then." Matthew held out a hand to steady her, even though she was more than ten feet away. "Tell me about Noggin. He lives somewhere elsei" When she nodded, he asked, "Wherei"

She shook her head.

He tried for a flintlock shot in the dark, thinking that there might possibly be some connection between the fact that Slaughter's safebox-bought by Mrs. Lovejoy-had been wrapped up in a Mrs. Sutch sausage bag, and now a Mrs. Sutch sausage bag appears in the back of her handyman's wagon. "Do you know the name Sutchi"

"Whoi"

The sausages were likely too expensive for her purse, he thought. and too expensive for Noggin's, as welli "Back to Noggin. and use yours, please." He waved away whatever she was going to say before she could open her mouth. "Has Noggin brought a man here to see Mrs. Lovejoyi In the past five daysi Or after darki" But how would she knowi he wondered. Where the girls lived was a good distance away from Mrs. Lovejoy's house.

Opal just stared at him, her eyes wide. Matthew thought she was trying to make a decision. Whatever it was, it wasn't easy.

"I am investigating Mrs. Lovejoy," Matthew said. "It's better that you don't know my name. But I believe that a man I'm looking for may have-"

"Kitt found out Noggin didn't bury Mr. White," she blurted out. "She told me. Everythin' she saw that night."

Matthew had stopped speaking at this bizarre assertion; he had no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed very important-urgent-to her. He said, "Go on."

"Mr. White was laid out in his coffin, in the church," Opal said. "For the service. Kitt said for me to look, that Ginger had dressed him up in that fine lace cravat he always wore, and it was a shame such a nice piece of lace was gonna get buried. She had a mind to come back before Noggin put him under and get it, but I said if Mizz Lovejoy caught her she was out on her ear." She paused, making sure Matthew was following.

"Ginger being another servanti" Matthew asked.

"Yeah, she's gone now. But Kitt said she wanted that lace, and she wanted me to go get it with her after we'd fed 'em their suppers. I wasn't havin' no part of it. So Kitt said she was gonna hurry to the church, sneak in and get the lace before Noggin wheeled the coffin out."

"Wheeled it outi"

"He's got a cart with wheels on it, that's how he moves the coffin about. See, he makes the coffins, too. So Kitt went back just as dark was fallin', but she told me she was too late because she saw Noggin's lanterns burnin'. and the thing is the thing is she saw Noggin right there pushin' the coffin into the back of the wagon, and she didn't know what to make of this so she slipped into the woods to watch."

"He'd already dug the gravei"

"That's not what I'm gettin' at," Opal said. "Kitt told me she saw him open the coffin and look in it for a time. Then he reached in, lifted up Mr. White's head-she said she could see his hair in the lamplight-and all of a sudden, whisk! He pulled that lace cravat off Mr. White and wrapped it around his own neck. Then he closed the lid, and he walked back to the graveyard as nervy as you please."

"Then he hadn't yet dug the gravei"

"No, just listen!" She came closer, until she was right in front of him a hand's reach away. "Kitt couldn't make tits nor teeth out of this, so she followed him. and there was Noggin in the graveyard, tampin' the last of the dirt down on Mr. White's pile. He'd finished it. But Mr. White was still in his coffin, sittin' in the wagon!"

"Noggin didn't bury him," Matthew said.

"That's right! He didn't bury him! But he'd made it look so! Well, Kitt figures she ought not to be where she is, and she starts off along the path away from there. Then all of a sudden somebody comes out of the woods right in front of her, right smack dab, a lantern's pushed in her face, and she said she hollered so loud she was surprised I didn't hear it way down where I was. She said she just turned tail and ran. and she said, 'Opal, don't you breathe a word of this, and I'm forgettin' I saw anything either.' and I said, 'Well, what is it you sawi' and she said, 'I don't know what I saw, but I didn't see it.'"

"Saving money on their coffins, I suppose," Matthew ventured. "Using the same one over and over in the funeral service."

"Yeah, I thought that." She leaned in to him, her eyes wide again. "But what became of Mr. Whitei"

Her question begged another. Matthew wondered if any of those forty-nine graves were really occupied. Were the bodies actually buried somewhere elsei Or just dumped into the woods beyond Paradisei If so, what the hell was this abouti

"The next day," Opal said, "I went and looked for myself. Sure enough, the grave was dug and filled and there was a new marker planted. and I started wonderin' right then is anybody to home in therei"

"Interesting," Matthew agreed, but this was totally off the subject of Tyranthus Slaughter. Except for the fact that if Mrs. Lovejoy knew about this fraud, it indicated a larcenous frame of mind. Still, what did she stand to gain from something like thati a few shillings saved on the wood for a coffini "Have you or Kitt told anyone elsei"

"Not me, for sure. I can't say for Kitt. 'Specially since she up and ran away about three days after it happened. So says Mizz Lovejoy to the staff. Says Kitt must've gotten sick of the work and bolted in the middle of the night. She wouldn't have been the first, just took out for the road. Well, I looked and all her clothes were gone out of her room, and her travelin' bag gone too." Opal held up a finger. "But," she said, "Kitt never would've left without sayin' good-bye to me. Never. I just know it in my bones. So right after that Mizz Lovejoy says she wants to see the staff one-by-one, to find out what might have made Kitt bolt like she did, without even drawin' her week's coin. Find out what might have been so heavy a weight on Kitt, she says. Me, I sat in there across from Mizz Lovejoy and all I thought about was who it might have been come up on Kitt and shone a lamp in her face. and I kept my mouth sealed tight. There you have it." Opal looked in all directions to make sure no one had crept close enough to overhear.

It was an odd story, Matthew thought. He really didn't know what to make of it. a grave dug and filled, but no coffin or body in iti The coffin and body then put onto a wagon, and taken wherei Obviously Noggin knew. Matthew was surmising that Mrs. Lovejoy also knew. and Kitt's fatei Had she actually run away, or had she

There was a very large mallet in the back of Noggin's wagon, Matthew remembered.

But was what Kitt had seen damning enough to kill her fori

Matthew figured that had to do with the importance of the secret.

If, for instance, a servant-girl decided to ask for a little extra shine in her pay in order to keep the secret, a mallet might have to fall. Or the decision might be to go ahead and use the mallet early, because if that same servant-girl got in contact with one of the families of a deceased person and talked them into coming back and having a grave dug up

"Tonight," Opal said. "He'll be doin' it again, with the widow Ford."

Whatever Noggin was doing, Matthew knew it had to be nasty.

and Nasty seemed to be Tyranthus Slaughter's middle name.

Was there a connectioni He had no idea. But he thought one slime trail might lead to another.

"I'd best get you back," Opal offered, suddenly sounding wan and older than her years. "Oh the man you're talkin' abouti I ain't seen nobody like that."

Matthew didn't follow when she started back toward the cemetery, and she paused to wait for him. He asked, "What's your full namei"

"Opal Delilah Blackerby."

"all right, Opal Delilah Blackerby. I want you to have this." He reached into the pocket of his dark green waistcoat, felt for what he knew to be there, and brought it out. "Here. Come take it."

She came forward, slowly, and when she took what he was holding she blinked first at it, then at him, then at it again. "Is this is this reali"

"It is." The ring was real gold, of course. Was the red stone a rubyi He would leave it for her to find out. Never let it be said that Slaughter's treasure hadn't offered a chance for escape to someone. "I wouldn't show that to anyone else. and I wouldn't care to stay around here very much longer either."

"Why are you givin' me thisi"

"Because I like you," he answered, in all truth. "I think you'd make a good detective."

"a whati"

"Never mind. If you ever get to New York, come to Number Seven Stone Street. Can you remember thati"

"Remember iti Hell's bleedin' bells, I'll never forget it!"

"I can find my way back," he said. "Just be careful, do you hear mei"

"I will," she promised. He started to go back along the path, leaving her staring at the gold ring with its small red-rubyi-stone, and then suddenly she caught at his sleeve and she asked, "Can I kiss youi"

Matthew said yes, it would be fine, and Opal gave him a sedate but heartfelt kiss on the cheek. a far cry from doing it behind the church, he thought, but maybe at its essence a little bit of warm.

He returned to Mrs. Lovejoy's house. another servant-girl answered his knock at the door. No, sir, Mrs. Lovejoy has gone out, she said. Mrs. Lovejoy has asked me to tell you that urgent personal business has called her away, but she will be glad to finish the arrangements if you would come back tomorrow or the following day.

"Thank you," Matthew replied. "Tell her "

Tell her I'll be back tonight, he thought.

"Tell Mrs. Lovejoy I shall look forward to her charming company," he said, and then he walked to his horse at the hitching-post.